After a challenging exploration through a tunnel leading to The Blightlands, we were at last through.

Before us the sand of the Blightlands looked more like a gray ash.

Per Laenor’s suggestion, we powdered ourselves with it, so as to dull the gleam of our Armour while crossing the planes before us.

To the left, there was flat lands as far as the eyes could see…

Straight forward would lead us to what looked like some broken down Ruins… This would take us 3 or 4 hours of travel, but appealed to me for some reason.

To the right was a barren forest of some sort, but my instincts told me that we shouldn’t head in that direction, and the group agreed.

And so to the Ruins it was…

We needed to get some sleep, and we figured we’d find an abandoned building and finally get some, as opposed to trying to rest in the open.

We traveled without incident, and once there, we found a Ruin which still had 3 walls, the fourth was torn down.

Laenor took half of the Party to check the immediate surroundings for safety, and came across what looked to be an Ancient School of Magic, which is shocking, as Magic has been frowned upon in Tch’Ahem B’Aer for hundreds of years.

Meanwhile, as we waited for them to return, so that we could at last get some sleep, I heard scratching noises around us…

“Gnolls,” I spoke, and the others readied.

Suddenly two Gnolls appeared, and the battle began.

Keeping in mind, if one of these ‘Cursed’ Gnolls scratched or bit any of the Magic Wielders, they would potentially be cursed, and face a certain death.

There were ten Gnolls in all, but the rest of the Party returned, so at least we did not have to face them alone.

In the end the battle was long, but successful, though I nearly got scratched trying to protect the Druid.

I’m not sure that this cause is truly worth losing our lives, part of me feels that I can serve my God Theramus in a better way than this…

In The Middle Of The Night, I Could Not Sleep… And So I Began To Flesh Out The Backstory Of FROST RHEALM, My Homebrew Creation, Which I’m Considering Publishing As Dungeons & Dragons, And/Or Game Content.

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FROST RHEALM

(Backstory)

Prince Tarov wasn’t always evil…

No.

In fact he was a loving son to his father, King Tarov…

And a beloved brother to his sister, Lysata.

That was until that terrible day many years ago…

That…

Treacherous day.

The Frost Giants had invaded their Kingdom…

Killing and/or harming the many villagers living inside its’ walls.

King Tarov’s Royal Guard did all they could to defend them, but there were simply too many, and they were so strong.

The Princess Lysata simply stood gazing out her tall, open window as her families kingdom crumbled away before her eyes.

Tears running down her face…

“How Could The Giants Have Gotten In…” she thought.

“Could someone have done this on purpose?”

And the moment this thought came to her, a single name went through her mind.

“No… It Couldn’t Be.”

Meanwhile her father and brother bravely battled the many Frost Giants along side their men.

And just as all seemed lost, the sky went green and blue, as an unnatural storm came forth.

Nekana and Laenor almost went to blows, Nekana even pushed him a bit, but it was Iven that ended it by saying that perhaps Nekana was the true owner of the Amulet.

Nekana didn’t want to talk about it anymore, seeming befuddled by the Thief’s statement, but more than that he may actually be related to her.

After all settled down, I (Thorin) stood guard, until I heard parts of the ceiling of the cave falling, and suddenly a rock hit my shoulder…

The tunnels weren’t all that safe anymore, construction wise, but the alternative would have been possibly losing their minds trying to get through the magic barrier that surrounded the Blightlands.

I healed myself, then went to sleep…

Ashkan held the final guard, and during it, heard what sounded like a large four legged creature coming from behind them…

…I Cast ‘Bless’ on Laenor, Nekana and myself, and prepared for melee combat.

Ashkan offered to throw up a magical fog to try and let the creature pass by instead of battling it, and after I listened more carefully, and determined just how huge this creature sounded, I agreed…

The Party than got back against one of the cave walls, as the large creature passed by them all, shaking and trembling the place.

After it passed, there was a slime trail that it left…

…Laenor, irrational as usual, put his finger in the slime to discern if it was worth trying to salvage as some sort of poison for his blade.

Instead, it burned off part of his finger, leaving all of us in shock, save him, who didn’t seem all that phased by it.

We moved on.

I decided that it wasn’t the best time to share with the group my encounter with the Deity Theramus in my sleep, and decided I’d tell them when we were in better surroundings.

Further ahead we came upon 7 possible paths, and decided to try one of the three that headed up, in hopes that we’d find an exit from these wretched caves.

Sadly, we heard only a massive amount of some sort of insects buzzing, and so turned back, and headed into one of the passages that headed down.

When we continued into it, we came across a room with a Chest in the middle of it…

…it had to be a trap.

I suggested that either our Rogue, or Thief check the room for traps, but of course, Laenor went ahead and checked himself.

Fool…

I’m reaching a point where I may need to pull him aside, and tell him that his rash ways were likely not only to get him killed, but possibly us as well.

But that would have to wait.

We determined after Laenor stepped towards the chest that the ground was some sort of black sand which caused a kind of necrotic damage.

Before we could make a plan as a group, Laenor cut a deal with our Rouge that if she’d let him carry her across to the chest over an area that seemed to be a bridge (still covered in the sand), they could split the treasure.

This was of course not ok, we’d all split the treasure, our talk nears…

In the end, Laenor fell while carrying our Gnome Rogue, and tossed her towards the chest, hurting her a bit, but she was ok.

Laenor on the other hand was stuck in the black sand.

I tossed a bag and an end of my rope to Walker, our Rogue, and she filled it with some gold, silver, copper and some gems.

I then pulled the sack across the sand, while some of the others helped Laenor out of the sand…

…I did not help him… Though I am a Paladin, his rashness has reached a point I will not allow…

The Spider upon us, Arinar struck it with his thorned whip, and Laenor, having been struck by the Spider and it’s poison, came into a sort of Second Wind, which seemed to take him out of harms way for the moment.

Just as I was about to attack, the Spider suddenly ‘phased’ out, and reappeared behind the Party, where Ashkan and Feldaerae were.

The Spider then struck at our Ganesman Ranger, Ashkan, knocking him unconscious as it’s poison ran through his veins.

I then charged it yelling the words which would summon ‘THUNDEROUS SPITE’ upon my blade, and thus lighting appeared around it, and I struck the great Spider!

BOOM! came a thunderous bang as I struck it, tearing a hole right through it, and causing it to fall sideways, trying to regain some kind of composure as it lay there dying.

Then the Elven Fighter Feldaerae cracked her whip, and snapped the remains of the spider in half.

It was dead.

As our other Elven Fighter Laenor tried to gather reusable poison from it, I knelt down by it’s dead body.

“A Phase Spider,” I spoke as I cleaned my blade.

Two of our Party members injured, we decided that we should take a long rest.

First on guard was Laenor, accompanying him was our Thief Iven.

Laenor was giving him some late night sword training, so that the inexperienced Iven might be able to at least hold his own should the need require.

I went to sleep, but it would not be an ordinary slumber.

In my dream I appeared upon a white sanded beach…

…the ocean water was a light blue green, it was like nowhere I had ever seen before.

Standing, painting in the distance was a strong looking man with black shoulder length hair, in a blue shirt, and black pants, with ornate silver armour on the ground near him.

“I have been waiting for you Thorin,” he spoke without looking away from his painting.

I felt inclined to approach, so I did.

“Is this a dream?” I questioned.

“Yes,” he spoke, then faced me, “And no.”

His words bewildered me, “What is it you want of me?” I questioned.

At this point he wiped his hands of paint with a nearby rag, then turned towards me.

“My name is THERAMUS, and I want you to serve me,” he spoke.

Theramus… I had heard of him… A Deity of Truth and Compassion.

“Why me?” I replied.

“Because you are noble and kind… And most of all… Honest,” he spoke.

And that’s when I suddenly was awoken by Laenor!

“Thorin, there’s a strange noise coming from further down the corridor,” he spoke.

“I HAD A VISION!” I spoke loudly as I sat straight up from my sleep.

Laenor looked at me curiously, but before I would speak of my dream, I instead grabbed my shield and blade, and the two of us went down the corridor.

It was dark, so I kept one hand upon Laenor’s shoulder, his Elven kind could see in the dark.

There was suddenly a foul stench, and Laenor grabbed his eyes which had begun to water profusely, “Ah, I can not see Thorin,” he spoke.

We suddenly heard a horrible sound, and out of a side crevice appeared a Ghast!

A foul, undead creature, tall, and horrible.

With this I grabbed the holy symbol around my neck, held it up towards it, and spoke words which caused the symbol to glow, “Back foul creature,” I spoke.

With this it started to back, back into the crevice, but Laenor would have none of it, suddenly his hand glowed purple and his rapier appeared in it.

He attacked successfully.

Suddenly Feldaerae was behind us and slashed the creature with her whip.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, Nekina, the Barbarian, approached Iven the Thief as he stood watching the fight up ahead.

“The amulet, give it to me,” she spoke with intimidation in her tone.

Iven stepped backwards, “It’s mine… It’s all that I have of my Father,” then tripped on a rock and fell backwards landing on Walker, our Rogue, who had managed to stay asleep during all of the commotions.

OOFF! Walker gasped.

When we had killed the Ghast, Arinar, our Elven Druid, found some silver, finely made, magical crossbow bolts from near where the creature had come from.

But as Arinar offered them to me, I ran back to the camp.

Laenor, angry at Nekana, tossed some sort of lightning from his hands, just missing her.